Music Pick: Captain Courageous

When Don Van Vliet died in December 2010 of complications from multiple sclerosis, he left behind one of the most fascinating bodies of work in American pop music. Recording as Captain Beefheart, he twisted and reshaped American blues into the strangest sort of art music, and the bands he put together to realize his vision (they varied in personnel but were all called the Magic Band) are the nonpareil of bizarre virtuosity. In 1976, Beefheart and his band recorded an album called “Bat Chain Puller,” but because of a legal dustup between the two founders of the label DiscReet records, Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa, the album was shelved—although the songs were rerecorded by a new band and released by Warner Bros. two years later. Now, with Beefheart, Zappa, and Cohen all dead and hatchets buried, Zappa’s widow Gail has permitted the original album to drop. It’s not radically different from the 1978 release, but it’s still fascinating to hear alternate versions of songs including the title track (the harmonica here is more prominent), the gentle, almost Leon Redbone-like “Harry Irene” (the piano is louder), and the immortal “Floppy Boot Stomp.”

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